Cao Ruyi already had a six-year old daughter when she and her husband learned that she was pregnant again this year. They couldn’t get a birth permit for the second child, but because they live in a large city in Hunan, they did not imagine that the family planning officials would threaten them.

But in June, five months into Ms. Cao’s pregnancy, officials lied to her husband to lure him out of town. More than twelve officials arrived at her home and forced her into a van and to the hospital where she was detained in a small room. She had two guards outside her door and several in a van outside when she was restrained and given an anti-inflammatory shot against her wishes.

When Cao’s husband arrived at the hospital and tried to free his wife he was severely beaten. The couple was told they had 36-48 hours to sign the abortion consent form. Otherwise, officials said, the baby would be forcibly aborted.

Ms. Cao’s husband immediately started calling people and putting out the word online, and All Girls Allowed picked up the story and issued a press release and an action alert to volunteers. Within hours, several reporters had published articles—and just as amazingly, dozens of All Girls Allowed supporters had called the hospital where Ms. Cao was detained!

The Hunan family planning committee folded under the pressure. They released Ms. Cao and her husband after receiving a 10,000 RMB (about US $1,500) deposit that would only be returned if the couple agrees to abort the baby. At first Ms. Cao was harassed by officials demanding further sums of money, but after renewed pressure from the media, the committee agreed to give Ms. Cao a birth certificate for a lower fee.

Thanks to international pressure, Ms. Cao and her husband are confident that they will be able to give birth to a baby without further interference from the Chinese government.

Cao Ruyi and her husband Li Fu

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YUYUE, Hubei, China—All Girls Allowed was able this past weekend to reach the uncle of Zhang Ping, the mother who died of hemorraghic bleeding following a late-term forced abortion. (Click here for the original report.) In the phone conversation, which you can listen to below (in Chinese only), Zhang's uncle said that the situation was resolved, that the government had paid them 350,000 Chinese yuan ($57,080 USD) to compensate them for Zhang's death. He claimed that Zhang voluntarily submitted to a late-term abortion. However,...